


if i only could make a deal with god

by abandonedquiche (chlorinetrifluoride)



Series: Under(grad)tale [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 07:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11755470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlorinetrifluoride/pseuds/abandonedquiche
Summary: On the first day of their junior year, Chara meets a freshman.They don't know, then, that this freshman would become one of their closest friends.This is how this particular story goes down.





	if i only could make a deal with god

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PlumTea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/gifts).



> prequel to "running up that hill", and sequel to "for dead men, deadly wine".  
> tbh you might want to read all of collegetale first, but those two fics in particular.  
> if you feel like i haven't appropriately tagged something important fic-wise, please let me know. i am not trying to trigger anyone or mess with their heads.

_“And if I only could_  
_Make a deal with God,_  
_And get him to swap our places,_  
_Be running up that road,_  
_Be running up that hill,_  
_Be running up that building._  
_If I only could…”_  
\- Placebo, Running Up That Hill

* * *

 

Your name is Chara, it’s the first day of your junior year of university and classes are finished for the day, which means you have earned the inalienable right to get plastered with one of your friends. One or more. Depends on whether Ragel is game. Bobbi won’t be, because she’s a lightweight. Same for Shyren.

Asriel won’t be, because he always does dumb shit under the influence of EtOH, and he’s too busy writing med school application essays anyway. Napstablook might be, but you don’t know if they like beer. You’d buy wine or Fireball or whatever they like. Napstablook’s a cool person. They like you even when all you can do is spout drunk incoherent bullshit and feel like crap on their floor, with the planetarium projector Asriel got them last year.

However, Sans is not invited, due to the fact that he is Sans. You actually came to like him in the weeks you spent at his place, but he’s… he’s trying to get sober for like the 25th time in recorded history. He doesn’t need the temptation of you and Berger getting wasted on his couch.

At any rate, you and Berger are walking back from the convenience store with three six packs of beer and a pack of cigarettes each, when you notice a girl sitting on the ground near the main entrance to campus, crying, with several runs in her stockings, and her ankles bleeding. She’s got skin the color of dark caramel and coil-curly hair that would obscure most of her face, were she not wearing a headband. She looks like she’s probably taller than you, but then again, you’re five foot nothing, so literally everyone is taller than you.

Although it’s two in the afternoon, you’re worried. Maybe it’s because of your upbringing, but whenever you see women crying in public, particularly ones who are crying all their makeup off - this kid has eyeliner and lipstick running down her face -  you get concerned that someone has done something heinous to them.

And besides, she’s got her ID meticulously clipped to her collar. You read it. Class of 201X (plus 3?)

She’s a freshman.

What kind of jackass would fuck around with a freshman? It’s the first fucking day of real classes. You’re going to find this person and strangle the life out of them, then you’ll bring them back to life through necromancy, and strangle them again. Sighing, you reflect that your ankles would be bleeding too, if you were wearing slingback stilettos that high. You creep closer and lower yourself down to the girl’s level, crouching in place. She looks at you, temporarily stops crying, and stares at you oddly.

You notice her gaze lingering on your arms and legs, which are covered in self injury scars and bruises. Well, they're ecchymoses, technically. Nevertheless. You’re the idiot who wore a yellow tank top and green shorts, putting everything on display. Or maybe God’s the idiot since, first off, he wouldn’t let you die after you downed a box of poison in soph year, and second off, he made it ninety-seven degrees today. You didn’t have much of a choice attire-wise, lest you pass out from heat stroke.

“I fall down a lot,” you tell the girl. You’re not about to say, “What’s good, frosh? I ate a whole bunch of rat poison three and a half months ago and now my blood still won’t clot right.”

“Me too,” she says. “I fell down in these shoes a bunch of times.”

“It happens.”

Freshman wipes her eyes.

“Sorry for crying at you,” she says.

“It’s perfectly alright,” you say. “If you need to cry, let it out. It’s better than keeping it in.”

Berger gives you a “could you hurry this along, our beer is gonna be lukewarm by the time you’re done” look. You so wish you could flip him off without this kid thinking that you’re giving /her/ that gesture.

“And, I would also fall down in those shoes,” you say fairly. “Campus is pretty spread out, y’know. So maybe don’t wear impractical shoes tomorrow?”

“My mother pretty much made me wear these, and this dress,” the girl says, the barest hint of annoyance in her tone. “She said I needed to put my best foot forward on my first day of freshman year. I'm a commuter student.”

“Kinda hard to put your best foot forward when you can’t even put your regular foot forward,” you reply. Sans would high five you for that one. Even the girl bursts out giggling.

“So um,” she starts out nervously. “What’s your name?”

“Chara.”

“I’m Frisk,” the girl says. That is not the name on her ID card, but then again, your true name isn’t on your ID card either. “What are your preferred pronouns, if you don’t mind me asking?”

You’re already starting to like this kid, even if her parents never taught her not to stare at people so avidly. 

“They, them, theirs. You?”

Frisk has the world’s widest smile for that.

“Really? Mine too!”

You mentally kick yourself for assuming their gender.

Your knees are starting to hurt from crouching for so long, so you flat out sit next to Frisk on the sidewalk. Berger gives you the mother of all eye-rolls and says he’ll be at the end of the block, having a smoke. Except he picks up the wrong pack out of the bag; he picks up your Marlboro Reds, but he pregamed Victorian Lit, so he’s way too plastered to notice immediately.

“You smoke menthols, you idiot!” you yell after him.

“Right, yeah, whatever, Chara,” he replies, flipping you off, and taking his cigarettes. “Fuck you! Fuck you and your next seven generations!”

Frisk’s eyes have gone wide at the exchange. You move a little closer so you can ask them what’s wrong, but then they recoil, curling into a ball, sitting on the cement, resting their chin on their knees.

“Hey, hey, Frisk, easy. Look at me,” you murmur. ”Breathe with me, okay? In for three, out for five.”

“I know, I know, I know the breathing exercises,” they half say, half snap. “I just… sometimes I freak out. People yelling and stuff, and… I’m sorry, Chara. I must be bothering the shit out of you. Your ID says you’re a junior. You must have something better to do than talk to me.”

You recall that you pinned your ID somewhere conspicuous, in case any freshmen or transfer sophomores asked you for directions.

Not even slightly. It’s either this, or go to Gaster’s lab. You are not setting foot in there until next week, because Dr. Gaster will expect you to run reactions for six hours or something. He’s been more lenient with you since you came back to the lab after your accident, so now he only expects you to stay for three. You kind of resent it, but you’re not about to say that to him. Either way. It’s not somewhere you want to be.

“You’re not,” you assure them. “If you get to know me, you’ll realize pretty fast that I tell people _exactly_ when they’re annoying the shit out of me.”

“Okay, Chara,” Frisk says.

You decide to change the subject.

“So, freshman, d’you want to know what you want to major in yet? You seem pretty smart. Finance? Physics?”

“Chemistry,” they answer. “Or biochemistry.”

You snort, although you don’t mean to. You’re not trying to patronize this kid. You remember your freshman year, and how you longed to punch any undergraduate who treated you as less than an equal.

“Well, Chemistry is for masochists. Biochemistry is for sadomasochists.”

“I guess you’re going to tell me you’re majoring in one of them?”

“Biochemistry,” you respond. “It’s been one day and I’m sure I’m not getting any higher than a C in in microbiology.”

“Microbiology, wow,” Frisk says. “I’d get a C, too. I barely know what that word even means.”

“Betcha ten cigarettes that you'll do much better. Your ID states your date of birth as 199X. Either they made a clerical error, or you skipped a grade.”

“I skipped a grade way back when. Still, though, I'm not that smart. I just study harder. I'm a regular student but it doesn't matter."

"How doesn't it?"

"I had a few friends in high school, but here, nobody wants to talk to me because nobody knows me. I wish I smoked, maybe I'd make friends more easily," they say. "But my foster father says it's dangerous to smoke. He caught my sister Sofia having a cigarette once, and… it didn't turn out very well."

You can sort of predict what "not turning out very well" means. A side effect of your upbringing. They've gotten a healing-over black eye, greenish-yellow, that would have been covered by their concealer earlier in the day. But not now. Not with the temperature so high. Not when they've been crying.

Frisk looks at you like they're expecting you to ask them what happened next.

"And then?"

"I jumped in front of her, pushed her back, like. That made him even angrier, so he punished me twice as badly."

You wince and say, "Sorry, Frisk,"

"I think It'll get better in college. It won't be like the summer. I'll have something to do, other than have nightmares all the time!" they say, almost brightly. "But it still hurts. I want to forget everything, but I can't, and I hate it."

"Frisk, it's okay when it hurts. I mean, it's not okay, but it's something that happens sometimes," you begin. "You don't have to hate yourself for it."

One day, you'll explain PTSD to Frisk, but not today. They've been through enough.

"I guess," they say, idly chewing on a hangnail. "I'm still nervous. I've never been to college before. Nobody in my family has." 

You ask Frisk for consent to touch them, they relent almost enthusiastically, and you put a hand on your shoulder. They lean down against you and cry.

"You'l feel better once you get used to it." you say." And Frisk?” you ask. They look back up at you. You tell them, "My parents, well, they weren’t the kindest either. Every time I fucked something up, not only would I be ashamed about that, but I’d be terrified of my punishment. For eighteen years. You’re not the first messed up kid to live through high school and then start at Mount Ebott U. Look at how great you already are. You skipped a grade, so you have to be smart.”

“I can do this. I hope,” they say, with a flicker of determination.

“You will," you insist. " This is my number." You scrawl it down on a post it with one of your endless pens. "Call me anytime?"

"Don't you need to sleep?"

"I'm a junior. I can sleep when I'm dead."

They give you a wet little smile.

"Thank you, Chara."


End file.
